Budgeting
You can build a second, re-mapped view of the same budget for a reader whose structure differs from yours.
Funders, broadcasters and coproducers each want the budget in **their** structure. An alternate grid is a second arrangement of the same numbers — not a second budget.
Open **Alternate Budget Grids** and add one. A budget can hold several — one per recipient.
**Start from a template where one exists.** The new-grid dialog offers **Load Template File** alongside the list of templates, so a recipient you have supplied before — a funding body, a broadcaster — comes back with its structure already built. Building the same layout by hand for every production is the thing this avoids; see [create a budget from a template](/kb/article/create-a-budget-from-a-template).
On the alternate side, use **Add Category**, **Add Group** and **Add Account** to build the structure the recipient expects, with their numbering and their descriptions.
**Drag an account from the active budget grid onto the matching account in the alternate grid.** The link shows as **Linked To Account** — the account in your budget whose value the alternate row takes.
That link is the whole mechanism. Nothing is re-entered and nothing can drift: the alternate grid displays your numbers in someone else's shape, and updates when they change.
**Every account in the active budget must be matched.** This is not a recommendation — an unmatched account contributes nothing, so the alternate grid would total less than the budget it claims to represent. The dialog flags what is still unlinked; work through the alerts before printing.
**The matching survives into a template.** **Save the budget as a template and its alternate grids go with it — matched.** A template is a complete copy of the budget, so it carries the grids, their structure, and every account link already made. Create the next production from that template and the mapping is there; nobody re-drags anything. This is what turns the matching from per-production work into a one-off. A funder's layout is worth building carefully **once**, and [saved as a template](/kb/article/save-a-budget-as-a-template), because the effort is then spent for every production that follows rather than for this one.
**Printing one.** Building the mapping is a budgeting job and is what this article covers. **Producing the output** — page setup, what the printed document looks like — belongs with printing, and will be documented when that module is written.
A copy is a second set of numbers that starts identical and diverges the first time someone edits one. An alternate grid cannot diverge, because it has no numbers of its own.
Where a recipient needs a different **structure**, use an alternate grid. Where they need a different **budget** — fewer shoot days, no second unit — copy it — see [duplicate a budget for comparison](/kb/article/duplicate-a-budget-for-comparison).
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